Friday, July 31, 2015

Google's John Mueller in this mornings Google Hangout said at the 4:37 mark into the video that Google doesn't tend to give advice around algorithms.
Yes, for manual actions, they try to give specific advice. But when it comes to being hit by Panda or Penguin or any search quality algorithm, Google says they tend not to give advice.
He said in response to being asked for advice:

I don’t know if I can give you specific examples there. We tend not to do that for algorithms when they review the site. Unless it is something really obvious that we can point out. Where we can say well, your home page has hidden text or something like that. For technical reasons that might be something where we can give examples. With search quality algorithms that is usually where we can’t give any specific examples from our side.

Here is the video clip:

From experience watching Google help webmasters, this is accurate. Truth is, I think it is often very hard for Googler's like John Mueller to find an example of why a site may be hit by Panda. Often you see him struggle with it when he is asked about specific cases.

Google's algorithms are better-focused than ever, according to a new study from Searchmetrics.

In its fourth annual Google ranking factors study, the enterprise platform looked at the top 30 search results for 10,000 keywords and 300,000 websites on Google. According to Marcus Tober, founder and chief technology officer at Searchmetrics, the findings simply confirm the current trends.

"Understanding user intention and creating unique, relevant content is more vital than ever before," Tober says. "It is also visible that backlinks are continuing to decrease in relevance. Looking ahead, as the proportion of search queries from mobile devices continues to grow, it will be interesting to see what effect this has on the rankings."

Some factors Searchmetrics saw positively affecting the rankings include mobile-friendliness; social signals, such as Facebook likes and Tweets; and backlinks, though the latter will likely decrease in importance. The study focuses on three other main areas:

1. Technical

Technical factors are still most important when it comes to ranking in Google. Compared with last year, the search volume of domain names has increased strongly. While brands often rank higher because of their inherent visibility, brand searches, with or without extra keywords, also influence non-branded searches.

Other positive ranking factors include a domain's SEO visibility; the frequency of H2 tags, in addition to H1 and meta description; a strong-but-short URL, which is worth thousands of keywords; and site speed. In addition, HTTPS encryption, which Searchmetrics included in its analysis for the first time, also impacts sites positively, though it's not necessary for sites that don't deal in sensitive data.

On the other hand, Keyword domains are no longer the strong ranking factor they once were. In 2014, 9 percent of the URLs in the top 30 included a keyword in their domain, a number that decreased to 6 percent this year. The proportion of pages using Flash is also significantly lower in the first two SERPs on both desktop and mobile.

2. User Experience

The internal link structure is important for both the crawlability of the Google bot and the user experience - CTR, bounce rate and time spent on site are three factors in ranking, after all. Last year, there were 131 internal links within the top 10 rankings; this year, there are 150. The same is true for optimization, which also includes factors such as responsive design, font size, and interactive elements. Bulleted lists also seem to be ranking factors, as they appear in half of the second-ranked sites and 40 percent in the top 30.

However, while the number of images helps rankings, the number of ranking sites with integrated videos has fallen from 2014. As of last summer, Google only plays video thumbnails in the SERPs; the dominance of YouTube also makes it difficult to rank. Searchmetrics also found that a large number of ads hurts ranking. Pages other than the first two search result spots, which are generally a brand page and Wikipedia, have an AdSense percentage of more than 10.

3. Content

While the content from the top 30 ranked pages has become more extensive - the word count for the top 10 pages averages 1,285, 25 percent higher than last year - less complex and more holistic, with more sites using proof terms and relevant terms.

Just as with the technical aspect of websites, keywords have become less important within content as well. Searchmetrics found that the percentage of pages that have the keyword they want to rank for as an external link's anchor has fallen, especially toward the top of the rankings. However, keywords are much more important within internal links.

Thursday, July 30, 2015

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me if I could get them a No. 1 Google ranking for a specific non-branded, hyper-competitive keyword, I would be rich. If I had a dollar for the number of times the people asking me that question actually had the content to warrant such a listing, I would be poor.

Many digital marketing folks, especially in enterprise B2B companies, don't quite understand the relationship between content and SEO. It's long been said in SEO circles that content is king.
However, some SEO folks would argue that links or social engagement is king, and that content is the primary driver of links and social success. There are valid arguments on all sides of that meaningless debate, but the point that often gets lost is that creating the best user experience for the vast majority of people searching for a specific keyword is probably what's going to get you ranked consistently for that keyword.

A content strategy that supports that bigger vision is typically different than the customer-focused strategies most B2B companies use. Many people over the years have told me, "Our company is the market leader for this term! We should be No. 1!" That is often true for products or services that are relevant to the keyword phrase they are targeting. It is true that brand recognition - and certainly the links that typically accompany successful brands - make it more likely that a company will rank well for relevant terms, but the fact remains that brand authority is not always enough to guarantee a top ranking for a particular keyword.

I would argue that that is less likely to be the case in the future, as search algorithms become more sophisticated at measuring user satisfaction and engagement. Links are still a pretty good reflection of quality so they carry a lot of weight in most search engine algorithms, particularly Google. However, there is no doubt that the ever-increasing weight of other signals designed to reward good user experience will ensure that going forward, if you don't deliver the content that people want, your company won't be found for that keyword.

I'm sure many people reading this will say, "Hey, Catfish, this is old news." But I would argue that it is still one of the biggest issues facing companies, especially B2B companies, today, as they spend a lot of money on SEO in hopes of attaining top 10 listings for their target keywords. I often see companies primarily producing marketing content that they think will help sell their products and then expecting that content to rank on the first page of Google for their primary keyword. If you look at it from the big picture, there are very few companies producing marketing content so compelling for the average user - who is searching on a general, non-brand keyword - that it truly deserves to be called one of the top three resources on the Internet for that term.

Take the phrase "Database management," for example. Most B2B companies targeting this phrase have content that speaks to their service offerings, their products, their competitive differentiators and possibly, some thought leadership content that speaks to current events or where they see the future of database management going. They may even have a definition page called something along the lines of, "What is Database Management?" specifically to target that phrase, not complement any other content. All of these things are a good start to ranking highly for the term "database management,: but oftentimes, those content segments still serve a relatively limited audience, given the number of different personas who are using that search term.

If you are truly trying to create a site that's a top three resource for a term like "database management," you will need to become an authoritative hub for all things database management. This means that the page that will most likely be ranking for this keyword will be less about selling products or services and more about meeting the needs of the average user doing the query. It means that this page will typically be a top level navigation page with links to deep content around all things database management. A content strategy like this certainly includes links to your product and service pages, but it also includes links to your thought leadership content; your definition page; your take on the state of the industry, recent industry events that will affect the entire industry, and common problems facing folks in the industry that your offering helps solve. You should also include answers to common questions that people - all kinds, not just your target customers - have with the term.

It will certainly be the top level node in some of the most comprehensive information on the subject that can be found anywhere on the Internet. It will also be easy to use with careful thought into the user journeys of all potential visitors. It will load quickly and be mobile friendly. In short, the content emphasis shifts slightly away from marketing and selling, and more to education, thought leadership and the engagement of as many different personas who might be using this keyword query as possible. In other words, it should truly be one of the best resources online for the entire audience of folks who typically do searches for this keyword phrase.

Most companies would do better to focus on casting a wide net on longer tail, more specific keyword phrases that are part of larger conversations around topics that contain many keywords. SEO success should be measured in traffic and conversions, as opposed to rankings for vanity keywords, which often convert at a lower rate because of how generic they are. Chasing these kinds of fat head keywords makes sense for some, but certainly not most, brands.

Of course, explaining this strategy to a CMO can be tricky when the company has prioritized ranking for certain keywords as part of their KPI set. In those cases, don't tell folks they shouldn't focus on rankings for specific keywords for their primary SEO success KPIs. Instead, you can paint the picture of what deserving to rank for such a keyword entails and what the commitment would have to be, in order to have a realistic expectation of being successful.

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

As an emerging industry, SEO is a field ripe for new college graduates, individuals looking to enhance their career skills, and those with a background in computer science, marketing, advertising, journalism, and other parallel careers. Everyday more and more people pour into the search industry.

In 2014 LinkedIn put SEO at number five for the hottest skills to get hired. Many jump at the opportunity to learn SEO, especially in conjunction with other skills. SEO is also a very practical skill to learn – search accounts for such a large percentage of Internet traffic that anyone with a website needs to learn SEO best practices if they take their site and traffic seriously.

The first thing a new SEO must learn is how Google operates. This means learning the value of links in search.

Google began by using links as the core of its search algorithm, which powers its results. This use of links made Google better than any other search engine available at the time. Google’s recognition of the value of links is what propelled its initial success.

But there’s a problem with the way many SEOs learn about Google and links. Learning that links are valuable because of search colors their perspective, and makes them see links as important only to SEO.

This valuation of links for search, and search alone, is putting the cart before the horse. Despite Google’s influence online, they do not yet control the shape of the Web.

But to think, as many new SEOs do, that the sole reason links are valuable is because of search, is flat wrong.

Links served a critical function long before Google existed, and will continue to have value online whether or not Google chooses to use links in its algorithm.

Links are critical to the function of the Web, marketing, SEO, websites, and humans.

Links Are a Fundamental Element of the World Wide Web

An oft-overlooked fact is that the Web as we know it couldn’t exist without links.
Links piece together the Web – it’s why we call it a "web" in the first place. Links are the strands that connect all the millions of pieces (websites) together.
There are essentially three ways to navigate the Web:

Type the exact page URL into your browser’s address bar.

Bookmark a page so you can return again.

Follow a link from one page to another.

Method one — typing the full URL path — is next to impossible for anything beyond the homepage of a domain you’re extremely familiar with. Facebook.com and Google.com are the classic examples. Once there, you would use links to navigate to specific pages.

Method two — bookmarks — only work if you’ve previously visited a page. Even then, bookmarks become extremely unwieldy if you bookmark every page you wish to visit again.

Method three — links — is by far the most common method of navigating the Web.

Links are also critical to navigating the various pages of a website. Facebook would be an impossible mess without strong site architecture and UX, both of which are dependent upon links.

Links Are Critical to Discovering New Sites

Exploration of the Web is also wholly reliant upon links.
Here’s how I explore the Web:

Search:
I use search to find specific sites containing specific information. Search returns a list of links (along with to pages they believe relevant to my query. Trust is implicit in search, and relevance is determined by the searcher based upon the title, meta description, brand/site familiarity.

Social:
Social media allows me to see what sites, pages, and content my friends recommend via links shared. I trust the links based upon how much I trust my friends, and click based upon the context surrounding the link.

Sites I Trust:
Reddit.com is a perfect example of a site I trust which I use to further explore the Web. Reddit users submit links to various subreddits — essentially subcategory pages — they think other Redditors will like. Redditors then upvote or downvote that link, establishing trust.Reddit is essentially an aggregation of other Web pages (their tagline is “the front page of the Internet") that Redditors think interesting, entertaining, or otherwise worth visiting. Link trust is based upon the trust of the community.

Every single one of these methods of exploring the w=Web is wholly reliant upon links.
Without links, the Internet would be entirely unnavigable. The Web runs on links.

Links Are Extremely Valuable in Marketing

All links are a type of exposure. Whenever you encounter a link on a website, another human is effectively saying, "I believe this page is worth your time, or is something you need to see."
That’s a strong vote of confidence.

This confidence is inherently understood as trust. If a website links to another website, it’s understood as a willing association. Of course context matters, and helps guide trust – but more often than not that link is an expression of value.

People who trust a website will transfer this trust to the linked website. There’s an implication of authority and respect with a link.

And since awareness is the main goal of all marketing, links play a critical role in much of online marketing. Yes, links matter to SEO. But links also matter beyond SEO.

Links build exposure, branding, relationships, authority, engagement, and even traffic outside of search.
Links literally direct visitors from another website. Anytime you have a backlink on another website, there’s an opportunity for exposure and traffic.

A link is a citation, mention, and direct navigation all rolled into one.

There is no parallel in offline marketing. There’s nothing in traditional marketing that makes arriving at a business as easy as the click of a mouse.

Links Remain Critical to Search Visibility

Since Google first used links as the core of its algorithm, and subsequently cornered the search market, links have been vital to SEO success.

Every SEO has witnessed the power of links in improving search visibility. Serious studies from both Moz and Searchmetrics confirm this. It’s well understood that links are a primary ranking factor.

Furthermore, Google continues to stand behind links as a signal in search.
There can be no doubt about the efficacy of links in search.

Shouldn’t the Value of Links Be Obvious?

With links playing such a critical role on the Web, it seems the value of links should be obvious.
Yet if you stop a random person on the street and ask them why links are valuable, they’ll likely stumble through an explanation. Clients often wonder about the value of links, needing further education. Even other marketers don’t always respect the value of links online.

Marketers are a jaded bunch. SEOs perhaps the worst of the lot. We’ve experienced and seen the manipulation that can and does happen time over time, until we forget that not everything is manipulation.

Furthermore, there’s a strong tendency in the SEO industry to forget the power of links beyond search. We can have extreme tunnel vision regarding search. We become convinced Google controls the fate of the Web, and are quick to think the sky is falling.

As SEOs we like to continually look to the future and question what we know. We’re constantly challenging one another. But this can be taken too far.

Will links continue to remain critical to search? Not according to some.
Which is why it’s so important to understand the value of a link – not just for search, but for the Web as a whole.

When you look at the Web from a search-only perspective, which is entirely too tempting as an SEO, you actually blind yourself to the Web as it is, and the value of links.

Links aren’t valuable because Google’s made them so; links are valuable in and of themselves. In fact, the reverse argument is more correct – Google’s valuable because is realized the value of links. Author Cory CollinsBy SEO Edmonton

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Google is now sending out a rush of new warnings via Google Search Console, formerly Google Webmaster Tools to notify webmasters that GoogleBot cannot access their CSS and JS (JavaScript) files on their web sites.

Michael Gray first notified me directly via Twitter and I planned on covering it tomorrow, but it seems Google is sending these warnings out at a rapid pace. Tons of webmasters are concerned after receiving these warnings.
Here is a picture:

Google has been telling webmasters to not block CSS & JavaScript for years and years. Here is Matt Cutts in 2012 telling webmasters not to block it. The webmaster guidelines were updated to say not to block them. The new fetch and render tool warns you when you block CSS and JavaScript. We also know, Google renders the page as a user would see it these days, so blocking CSS/JS can impact that big time.

It seems like Google is sending these notices out in mass quantity now. The message reads:

Google systems have recently detected an issue with your homepage that affects how well our algorithms render and index your content. Specifically, Googlebot cannot access your JavaScript and/or CSS files because of restrictions in your robots.txt file. These files help Google understand that your website works properly so blocking access to these assets can result in suboptimal rankings.

This is not a penalty notification, but a warning that if Google cannot see your whole site, it may result in poorer rankings.

If you get this message, talk to your developers and discuss what you can do, if you need to do anything. Use the fetch and render tool to diagnosis the issue deeper as well.

Many WordPress sites are getting this notification because their /wp-includes/ folder is blocked by robots.txt. Plus there are many popular CMS solutions that block their include files by default.

Hosting ProviderIf you use a hosting provider, Google recommends you contact them to see if they offer on-demand support for dealing with issues related to hacked sites.

If you manage your own server, Google says you better be prepared to deal with any complex security issues that might arise.

Google ServicesGoogle offers a number of services that notify you if your site is compromised. Signing up for Google Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools) is one of the most obvious recommendations since it’s Google’s direct connection to site owners.

In addition, Google suggests setting up Google Alerts to notify you of suspicious results for your site:

“For example, if you run a site selling pet accessories called www.example.com, you can set up an alert for [site:example.com cheap software] to alert you if any hacked content about cheap software suddenly starts appearing on your site.”

Setting up alerts for spammy terms following the method described above is also recommended.

On May 5th during the long-awaited Google AdWords LiveStream at SMX, Google’s VP of Product Management Jerry Dischler took the stage to reveal some exciting and mix-reviewed innovations the team has released (or plans to release) with hopes of improving the search experience for users and advertisers.

One of the most exciting updates? The new mobile ad units! Google revealed that mobile searches have finally surpassed desktop, so naturally they’ve been pushing mobile optimization for advertisers through product innovations.

But, there’s one headache inducing problem with mobile advertising – we kind of suck at it! I apologize for being blunt, but truly converting mobile visitors has proved to be a challenge for advertisers across multiple industries.

Just check out the graph below from a WordStream study proving that mobile conversions fall far behind conversions occurring on desktops and tablets:

Pathetic!

The biggest problem is that advertisers are treating their mobile ads the same as their desktop ads, when in reality mobile behavior is vastly different. Mobile searchers are on-the-go, multi-tasking, commuting, and easily distracted creatures. In contrast, desktop searchers are more civil, focused, and inclined to conduct research.

Think about it. When you’re cooking pasta while browsing your phone for new sandals and you notice the water boiling over, are you going to ignore it and proceed with your shopping? Absolutely not. Advertisers need to realize mobile searchers are not different people, but people in a different state of mind.

So, what has Google done to address this?

They’ve introduced new mobile ad formats for four of the largest industries advertising on Google including travel, finance, automotive, and shopping. Naturally, non-included industry advertisers felt discouraged upon these announcements. Luckily, Jerry confirmed at SMX Advanced in Seattle that Google intends to scale these new mobile ad units for multiple industries in the coming months.

“When session lengths are compressed as they are on mobile, we need to drive people to answers more quickly,” Dischler said. “On mobile, people also expect more rich content. So we’re going to build products that work well on mobile first. For each vertical, we’d like to create a template that will lead to an answer.” So take a breather, Google has not forgotten about you!
Now let’s take a look into some of the most innovative features these new ad formats have to offer.

#1: Mobile Ads are Becoming More Visually Interactive

Google recently announced carousel ads, which are a set of images that you can scroll through (similar to a catalog) directly on the SERPs. They’re engaging, interactive, scream ‘mobile-friendly!’ due to the touch-screen element, and allow the searcher to browse before clicking, which is beneficial for both the searcher and the advertiser.

Currently, this feature is for automotive advertisers only. Around 50% of searchers in the automotive industry occur on Google, so they’ve decided to prioritize these formats for this visual and research-heavy industry first.

I suspect that these formats will become available for advertisers in various industries because, let’s face it, imagery is important to both the user and advertiser, so Google withdrawing the ability so see images within ads on the SERPs could lead to fewer mobile clicks and more frustrated spenders.

#2: Easily Compare & Read Product Reviews on the SERPs

Do you remember the last time you bought a car? You hopped online, did a search including the ‘must-have’ terms to find an affordable and practical vehicle, and hit “Buy now”, right?

Not exactly. You likely spent months comparing models, conducting research, reading reviews, etc.
Google understands how people shop. Searchers want to make informed decisions before purchasing. Whether it be booking a hotel room or signing up for a new credit card, a searcher is never going to choose the first thing they see. They also understand that, on mobile, the chances of visiting a bunch of websites to get additional information on various brands are pretty much nonexistent. Mobile searchers don’t have the patience, time, or attention span for this kind of investigation.

This is why Google introduced Google Compare in March to help shoppers compare car insurance directly through the SERPs. “Whether you’re a national insurance provider or one local to California, people searching for car insurance on their phone or computer can find you along with an apples-to-apples comparison of other providers – all in as little as 5 minutes,” says the Google AdWords blog. “You can highlight what makes your business unique, whether that’s an ‘A’ rating in customer service or better discounts for safe drivers.”

During the Livestream, Dischler announced Google Compare will be coming for mortgage providers and credit card companies, which leads to the suspicion that Google Compare is going to be available to compare several other products across a range of industries in the future. With the new hotel ad formats, searchers are also easily able to compare hotel locations, reviews, and rates side-by-side.

In addition to the ability to compare products on the SERPs, Google is also integrating more review information into ads. Approximately 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations according to BrightLocal, so Google is making it easier for mobile searchers to see reviews directly on the SERPs.

#3: Revamp of Dynamic Search Ads to Make Your Life Easier

Dynamic search ads previously just inserted a search query into the headline of your ad in the hopes of boosting relevancy and CTRs. Although this capability worked wonders for some advertisers, others (like eBay) misused the functionality leading to embarrassing results.

The problem with targeting searchers with keywords is that 15% of Google searches are completely unique and have never been searched for before, therefore chasing mobile specific keywords is a fool’s game. Luckily, Google has made huge strides with a complete revamp of Dynamic Search Ads providing a much higher level of transparency and lower level of keyword management.

So, how do these new DKIs work exactly? Google’s web crawling technology scrapes through the content of your site, and then organizes your site into categories, which then match to relevant queries and ads and direct to the most relevant landing page. Why I already love these new DKIs: it gives the searcher a clean, easy, and relevant experience, and takes the daunting task of keyword management and set-up out of the equation for the advertiser.

Also, you don’t need to break a sweat about Google running the show because you will still have the ability to make adjustments on categories, targeted searches, ad text, etc.

#4: The Ability to Buy, Book, & Act Directly Through the SERPs

Mobile searchers are far too busy to visit a bunch of websites. They want to hop on Google, get an answer or complete an action, without having to go through a site full of hurdles and pages to get the end result. With additional hurdles on mobile comes a lack of motivation from searchers. “Eh, I guess I don’t really need that,” or “I’ll do it later,” the searcher thinks, and then sayonara to that on-the-brink conversion.

This is why new mobile ad formats are going to allow searchers to do more, faster. Google recently confirmed that the buy button is real, making it easier for shoppers to buy on-the-go. They’ve also revealed the ability to complete other actions more easily, like booking a hotel or flight with the click of a button, on the relevant check-out page. This will be a huge advantage for advertisers to keep the motivation of mobile searchers high and increase conversions.

I’m thrilled about these new mobile ad formats and am confident that mobile conversion increase potential is set high for advertisers.

Most SEO campaigns are destined for failure because expectations are too high, budgets are too low, decisions are made based on assumptions instead of data and customer expectations are misunderstood.

Whether you're managing a campaign yourself, or you've hired an SEO professional, ask these 7 questions to determine if your campaign is on the right track.

1. Have You Set Realistic Goals?

Setting unrealistic goals for your SEO campaign, such as dominating Google and Bing for every product or service you offer right out of the gate, will most always result in failure. Instead, set realistic objectives for your campaign and achieve success incrementally. For example, most businesses offer multiple products or services. If your business falls into this category, it can be daunting to achieve top rankings for everything you offer. With an incremental strategy, you can optimize for one product or service, and after you've achieved success, move onto the next product or service and so on.

Also, keep in mind that a successful SEO strategy can be perceived as unsuccessful only because the goals are so completely unrealistic.

2. Do You Have a Realistic Timeframe and Budget?

This is a big one. Most businesses do not have realistic timeframes or budgets for their SEO campaigns. They want results immediately, and at the same time, are only willing to make a minimal investment. Consult with an SEO professional and determine what a realistic timeframe and budget would be for your type of business. The more competitive your industry, the greater timeframe and larger budget you should expect. If you go into an SEO campaign with a short timeframe and unwillingness to make the necessary investment, it will most likely fail because you are not giving your SEO professional the necessary time to test and make adjustments needed for a successful long-term campaign.

3. Have You Chosen the Right Keywords?

Optimizing for the wrong keywords is common and often the cause of an SEO campaign's failure. Ideally, you've hired an agency or professional to manage your campaign and they've chosen the right keywords after performing extensive keyword research. However, if you've selected your own keywords based on what you "think" your customers are searching, without verifying with real data, it's highly probable that your campaign is not using the right keywords.
Analyze keyword data using a reputable keyword research tool and see what keywords your (successful) competitors are using, to make sure you're optimizing for the right keywords.

4. Is Your Campaign Delivering the Right Traffic?

If you have failed to select the right keywords, then you're either not delivering enough traffic to your site, or not delivering the right traffic or a combination of both. A quick sniff test to determine if your campaign is delivering the right traffic is to look at your site's bounce rate for organic search traffic. If you see a high bounce rate for organic search visitors, then what they're searching for is not consistent with what they're finding on your website. It's important to distinguish the bounce rate for organic visitors from other visitor types (i.e., direct visits, referral visits, etc.) so you can make informed decisions based on your organic search traffic specifically. If you have a high bounce rate for all visitor types, this means you may have a larger issue to address, such as your website.

5. Do You Have a Professional Website?

A successful SEO campaign starts with a professional website that engages visitors upon arrival. Visitor engagement is crucial to a campaign's success, because engagement ultimately results in conversions, which is how most businesses measure a campaign's success. The lack of a professional website discredits your brand and therefore reduces engagement and conversions.
Here are some questions to ask when evaluating your website:

1. Is it outdated?
2. Is it professionally designed?
3. Does it have an intuitive navigation structure?
4. Is it user-friendly across desktop, tablet and smartphone devices?
5. Do you receive positive or negative feedback about it from existing customers?

6. Are You Writing Content That Your Customers Care About?

Lack of visitor engagement and a resulting lack of conversions can also be attributed to providing content that fails to answer prospective customers' questions. Do not write content simply to appeal to search engines. Have a content strategy in place that answers questions and addresses concerns your customers typically have. Prospective customers will appreciate this and are much more likely to become paying customers as a result.

7. Are You Tracking Data and Making Improvements?

Tracking data and making improvements as needed is crucial to a successful long-term SEO strategy. This can often result in small tweaks that help improve the campaign over time or significant adjustments such as revamping an entire content strategy or even redesigning a website.
It's a mistake to simply measure the results of an SEO strategy based on one data point, such as rankings or phone calls. You should look at all of the data collectively and understand how the rankings are contributing to traffic and how that traffic is contributing to conversions. If you look at all of the data points as a system working together, it's easier to find and fix deficiencies. For example, if rankings and traffic are good, but conversions are lacking, this could be due to poor keyword choices, a poorly designed website or some other factor that could change the entire complexion of the campaign if addressed.

Conclusion

Most SEO campaigns are destined for failure, but yours doesn't have to be. If you answered "no" to any of these questions, you now know where your campaign is lacking and where to focus on making changes.

Google announced this spring during the livestreamed Inside AdWords event that
Dynamic Search Ads was getting a reboot. Tuesday, the overhauled interface
became available to all advertisers globally.

With Dynamic Search Ads (DSA), Google automatically generates text ads for inclusion in an auction based on your site content as opposed to the keywords you input into a campaign. Google creates the headline, ad copy and chooses the landing page based on a crawl of your site.

The idea is that DSA can be used to cover your bases for keywords that aren’t already in your campaigns. These may be unique or low-volume queries or location-oriented searches that use “near me” or “nearby”, which according to Google Trends data have doubled in the past year.

What’s New

DSA has always relied on crawling and indexing site content, what’s new is that it now also creates categories of your site content for ad targeting. When selecting the option to “Use categories recommended for your website” (see screenshot above), you’ll see the way Google categorized the products on your site. In the example above, there is a Furniture category which is then sub-categorized by “dining room furniture”, “bedroom furniture”, etc.

While you do lose some control compared to selecting specific product pages, targeting by category can save set-up time or expand on DSA targeting you’re already doing.

For each suggested category, Google provides samples of the types of search queries it will target, text ad examples and landing pages. Bid recommendations are based on the performance of keywords in your other campaigns that target similar queries.

Monday, July 27, 2015

Google has finally announced the Google+ news that everyone has been waiting for: Your Google+ profile will no longer be your identity in all Google products. This change will be trickling out “in the coming months,” and the first product to enjoy the change will be the one that was most negatively affected by Google’s Google+ obsession: YouTube.

Bradley Horowitz, Google’s vice president of streams, photos, and sharing, says the changes are a response to user feedback (much like LinkedIn did this weekend): “We’ve also heard that it doesn’t make sense for your Google+ profile to be your identity in all the other Google products you use.” No shit.

The move means you’ll soon be able to use your standard Google account to share content, communicate with contacts, create a YouTube channel, and so on. Unlike your public Google+ profile, your Google account is not searchable or followable.

In fact, if you already created a Google+ profile (read: Google conned you into doing it) but don’t plan to use Google+, the company says it will “offer better options for managing and removing” your public profile. Horowitz says the changes are meant to strike a balance between the select few who actually like using Google+ and everyone else whom Google forced to sign up for its social network.

YouTube

The YouTube team has shared how these changes will affect comments and channels on the video site. In short: Google+ will slowly but surely be going away.

Starting today, the comments you make on YouTube will no longer appear on Google+. The same applies the other way: Nothing you post on Google+ will appear on YouTube.

That said, YouTube says its creator community did like Google+’s moderation options on channels, such as reviewing comments before they’re posted, blocking certain words, and auto-approving comments from certain fans. These features will remain, just sans Google+.

In related news, YouTube has been improving the ranking system that reduces the visibility of junk comments. The Google-owned company says the rate of dislikes on comments “has dropped by more than 35 percent across YouTube.”

In the “coming weeks,” YouTube will no longer require a Google+ profile when you want to upload, comment, or create a channel. That means if you want to remove your Google+ profile, you’ll be able to do so “in the coming months.”

That said, Google does offer a warning to YouTube users: Do not delete your Google+ account now “or you’ll delete your YouTube channel (no bueno).” In other words, the changes are finally coming, but you still have to be patient or Google+ will still screw you.

Google+

Horowitz made a point to emphasize, once again, that Google+ isn’t going away. Instead, he reiterated that the company will be offering “a more focused Google+ experience.”

In other words, Google+ has a core set of users that really do enjoy using the service. “Google+ is quickly becoming a place where people engage around their shared interests, with the content and people who inspire them,” Horowitz said.

More specifically, Google plans to continue to offer new features in Google+ and move “features that aren’t essential to an interest-based social experience” into existing products.

In May, Google launched Google+ Collections, a way to share videos, links, and photos on different category boards. Later that month, the company also introduced Google Photos, and moved many elements of Google+ Photos into that new app. Next, Google will be bringing location sharing into Hangouts and other apps, “where it really belongs.”

Today is just another part of the plan. It’s just that Google is finally executing the best part.

Update: Horowitz has posted his thoughts on Google+, describing in more detail what the move which he describes as a pivot. Again, this has been in the works for a while. You’ll still hear about Google+ going forward, but increasingly Google’s social strategy, for better or for worse, will be a three-pronged push: Streams, Photos, and Sharing.

Here’s the post in full:

It’s been a little more than a quarter since I took on leadership of a newly formed team, which we’ve christened SPS: Streams, Photos, and Sharing.

In that short time, I’ve had some time to reflect on the products we’ve built over the last few years, and also the opportunity to oversee the launch of our new Google Photos product. I’ve concluded that it’s time for a “pivot”… or more precisely time to talk more openly about a pivot that’s been underway for some time (and in fact is reflected in the name of the new team). We’re going to continue focusing Google+ on helping users connect around the interest they love, and retire it as the mechanism by which people share and engage within other Google products.

Four years ago when we conceived of the “Google+ Project”, we made it clear that our goals were always two-fold: Google+ aspired to be both a “platform layer that unified Google’s sharing models”, and a product / stream / app in its own right.

This was a well-intentioned goal, but as realized it led to some product experiences that users sometimes found confusing. For instance, and perhaps most controversially, integration with YouTube implied that leaving a comment on YouTube (something users had obviously been doing successfully for years) suddenly and unexpectedly required “joining Google+.”

We decided it’s time to fix this, not only in YouTube, but across a user’s entire experience at Google. We want to formally retire the notion that a Google+ membership is required for anything at Google… other than using Google+ itself.

Some of the consequences of this shift in thinking have already been deployed. Others we’re rolling out as fast as possible (e.g. the changes to YouTube we referenced today). And many more will roll out over the rest of the year.

What does this mean for Google+ the product? Relieved of the notion of integrating with every other product at Google, Google+ can now focus on doing what it’s already doing quite well: helping millions of users around the world connect around the interest they love. Aspects of the product that don’t serve this agenda have been, or will be, retired. But you’ll also see a slew of improvements that make this use case shine (like the recent launch of Collections – https://plus.google.com/collections/featured).

It’s been incredibly gratifying to see how this strategy has played out as realized in the recent Google Photos launch, a product which in many ways embodies and telegraphs the changes discussed above. Google Photos not only doesn’t require a Google+ account, but as much of the functionality as possible doesn’t even require an account at all. It was important to me that when we launched Google Photos, we stressed the product implements sharing by any means a user prefers… without compromise or agenda. This is the right thing for users and the feedback and usage has been extremely validating.

I’m excited to share this strategy with the world, excited about what it means for Google+, and most of all for all of Google’s users.﻿

Google announced that on August 10, 2015, they will be closing down their Autocomplete API.
Google said the unsupported API had no official restrictions and saw the API being used in both ways they found useful and in other ways that were not so useful. That being said, Google said the Autocomplete API doesn’t “provide a meaningful user benefit” other than being paired to Google Web search.

Peter Chiu from Google wrote:

In the interest of maintaining the integrity of autocomplete as part of Search, we will be restricting unauthorized access to the unpublished autocomplete API as of August 10th, 2015. We want to ensure that users experience autocomplete as it was designed to be used — as a service closely tied to Search. We believe this provides the best user experience for both services.

For publishers and developers who still want to use the autocomplete service for their site, we have an alternative. Google Custom Search Engine [CSE] allows sites to maintain autocomplete functionality in connection with Search functionality. Any partner already using Google CSE will be unaffected by this change. For others, if you want autocomplete functionality after August 10th, 2015, please see our CSE sign-up page.

Google also believes that many SEM and keyword tools use this API to generate new keyword ideas. This may affect some of the tools you use.

Social bookmarking began life as a trendy new way to market using the sites of the hour, giants like Delicious and Digg.

When was the last time anyone trendy used Digg?

I can tell you that they think they’re trendy. Just look at their site these days. It’s all flat and paned like Windows 8, but with a stark black and white theme made for appealing to a certain demographic.

Is Digg really social bookmarking anymore, though? I see no submission form. I see nothing, in fact, that made it what it was when it debuted. In fact, all I see is a site trying almost painfully to appeal to a certain type of hipster with titles like “Revelations from Outer Space” and “Nope, That is Not How a Shower Works.”

Granted, I’m not giving Digg a fair shake, because this is the last of it I’m going to mention. What you really want to know is, is social bookmarking – the real stuff – worth anything for SEO these days?

Direct Links

In the old days, the primary reason anyone would use social bookmarking was the ease of a link. Links used to be far more valuable than they are today, and they also used to be less regulated. Concepts like “nofollow” didn’t exist, or weren’t widely used. Any site with user submissions thus became a great marketing target.

Sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and so forth were perfect for marketers. They had very little filter beyond community upvotes, and here’s the thing; a link on one of those sites didn’t disappear just because no one voted it up. It just settled to the bottom, noticed by search engines but not by users. The backlink was still valid.
These days, the vast majority of these sites nofollow their links automatically. Even if they don’t, well, Google understands what social bookmarking is, and they don’t want you artificially building a ton of backlinks so easily. I feel comfortable in saying that, if your purpose is solely to gain direct backlinks, social bookmarking is firmly dead.

Indirect Links

Indirect links are a concept I feel like many marketers disregard, because it’s not something you can control.

The idea behind indirect links is that by posting on social bookmarking sites, other people become aware of your site. They see your link, they click on it, they read your posts. Maybe they like them enough to bookmark them for later, maybe not. The point is, they’re aware of you.

Now, the next time they’re writing about a topic related to your post, they remember what you wrote. They think “hey, maybe I should find that cool article I found before and link to it.” They do, and you earn a link. This link may have come from a site you’ve never heard of and never thought to contact. Sometimes it might even come from a site much more popular than your own. The direct link from the bookmarking site may not have been valuable, but the link you received certainly was.

Social Recognition

There’s a certain value associated with simple name recognition. By presenting yourself on social bookmarking sites, you’re putting your content up on a pedestal to be judged. If you fail, on some sites, you just find your link down-voted until it disappears. On other sites, like Reddit, you might even find yourself banned from the site for blatant advertising.

On the other hand, what if you find success? At a low level, success means a few upvotes, which promotes your site and gets you seen by more people. It doesn’t do a lot, but it puts your post and your brand in front of people who wouldn’t have otherwise seen it. Afterwards, when they’re browsing around, they might recognize your name and give you the benefit of the doubt.

If you see great success, you end up with a bit of a viral surge in traffic. People vote your site up and you end up on the front page of whatever site you’re using, be it Reddit or Imgur or anything else. You’ll find your site shared on other sites and linked from sites that wouldn’t have even known you exist before.

Of course, this relies entirely on the quality if your content. There’s no real way to game the votes; if you try to vote yourself up using secondary accounts, you’ll almost definitely be caught and suffer the consequences. Such sites can be very hostile to people trying to compromise the integrity of their voting system.

Valuable Traffic

Social bookmarking has one great benefit, and that’s high quality traffic. The people who use social bookmarking sites use them to find content they really want to see. If they’re clicking your links, they’re legitimately interested in what you have to say, and they’re just as likely to share it on other sites as they are to vote it up on their home site.

Reddit is one of the best for this, but again, it’s a very fickle place. You have to follow their rules, and you have to fit in with their culture, otherwise you’re going to find no traction or end up banned.

Part of this involves simply being a member of the community. They even say, in their guidelines, that it’s okay to be a Redditor with a website. It’s not okay to be a marketer on Reddit.

Your goal, then, is to fit in as much as possible. Be a regular user, learn how to communicate with other users, using the unique language of Internet culture.

The other part of success on a site like Reddit is finding the right place to be. Reddit – and many other social bookmarking sites – has a metric ton of sub-sections for various topics. They can range anywhere from broad topics like politics and marketing to ultra-niche topics only two or three people in the world would care about.

You need to identify those niches and figure out where your topics fit. Spend some time in those sections, learning how those users communicate, and proceed only once you feel you fit in. If you do it right, you’ll get a lot of interested traffic for little or no effort.

Google's John Mueller said several-months ago that Google won't index the content found within hidden tabs. But SEOs and Webmasters said they would. It might be more that they weight that content less than visible content.

But this morning, Gary Illyes added a bit more detail on this at Stack Overflow saying that Google "won't see the content behind tabs if the content under the tab is dynamically generated (i.e. not just hidden)."

That means that when you click the tab, then the content first starts to be rendered, Google won't see it.

This question comes around using Bootstrap tabs to dynamically generated content in those tabs on click.

Gary Illyes from Google said:
"No, we (Google) won't see the content behind tabs if the content under the tab is dynamically generated (i.e. not just hidden)."

You can also see what we "see" using Fetch as Google in Search Console (former Webmaster Tools); read more about the feature in our post titled Rendering pages with Fetch as Google.

This is part of a general clean-up of unclaimed or dormant pages/listings. Blog author Mike Blumenthal has also asserted that the move “is a final step in separating local from Plus.” Indeed, it would appear to be part of the larger move away from Google+.

Here’s an excerpt from a Google email that has been circulating in local forums and local search blogs:

In the past few months, you may have seen some changes in the look of Google+ pages that have been associated with Google My Business (GMB) accounts. These changes, including how we treat business pages without owners, are part of Google’s ongoing effort to simplify people’s experience with our tools. We are constantly working to provide only valuable and rich content to our users.

On July 28, Google will begin shutting down those GMB-associated Google+ pages that have not been associated with user accounts and are also not verified. You may find that some of your Business View tours also sit on such pages, but note that after this removal of unverified Google+ pages, the Business View tours will still remain available on Google Maps and Google Search.

Unclaimed Google+ pages are not good for the product or for users. In addition, Google is creating incentives here for people to claim their listings and actively engage with Google My Business.

Some folks are celebrating the move (Phil Rozek):

“To me this just seems to be more a long-overdue house cleaning . . . “

But others (Joy Hawkins) have raised concerns it will make the work of local SEOs harder:

Am I the only one thinking that this will actually make our (SEOs) jobs harder? For me, the unverified pages show me insight into bad NAP or things I need to fix for clients. Without that insight I feel like diagnosing is just about to get harder…

Here’s what the Google Maps team recommends:

Encourage your business customers to verify their listings if they wish to retain their Google My Business page . . .

If a business owner decides later that they would like to have a Google My Business page, please advise them to create a new page and verify their listing. The Business View virtual tour can be then transferred to the new verified listing. Please log a case to our support teams to request that images for your business customer be forwarded to the new GMB page.

Please point your business customer to their images in Google Maps.

Do you agree this is a welcome development? Do you think, as Mike Blumenthal suggests, that this is a final uncoupling of Google+ and local search?

I think most search marketers would agree that paid search is not a "set it and forget" advertising medium. But you might be surprised at how many advertisers effectively do just that, casually checking campaign stats without any real game plan to improve their PPC performance. Or, they simply trust the search engine to optimize their performance for them. And while most who fall into this camp tend to be smaller businesses who are presumably not as digitally savvy, I've run across more than one major paid search advertiser that effectively hadn't changed its campaigns in years.

Wondering whether you're paying close enough attention to your PPC campaign data? A simple measure of your campaign knowledge is whether or not you can answer questions such as:

What's a reasonable click-through rate to expect for my ads?

Am I spending too much or too little this month?

How much revenue could I earn each month from my campaign?

Should I continue sponsoring this keyword or is it actually hurting my campaign?

If you can't answer fundamental questions such as these, read on. The following will provide you with guidance.

The goal of campaign measurement is to make informed decisions about your campaign. That means having a strong knowledge of your current and past performance, and the insight to uncover and address problems and opportunities that were previously unknown to you.

The following are the key statistics to watch:

Daily and Monthly Spend

The two most important statistics you need to track are your daily and monthly campaign spend, so you understand what you're spending per day, how your campaign spend changed over the past month, and what a normal month looks like.
Start by looking at your absolute dollar spend every day and maintain a trending chart to help you distinguish between normal and abnormal daily fluctuations. With it, you can see when costs are highest and when they trend down. A chart can also tell you what's perfectly normal for daily cost fluctuations. Anything outside of the normal range can alert you to problems.

Coverage and Impression Share

The next two statistics to track are coverage and impression share. Impression share is the percentage of the available search impressions in which your ads appear across all your keywords. Coverage is similar, except that it doesn't take traffic into account and can be used on individual keywords. These metrics can tell you how much traffic you're leaving on the table.

In terms of importance, coverage takes precedence over impression share because it tells you exactly where the problems lie by revealing places where your quality score lags behind your close competitors. That being said, impression share helps monitor your campaign's overall health. If it drops below 70 percent, you know it's time to start figuring out what's going wrong.

Clicks

It's important to track both the daily and monthly clicks you're receiving from your campaigns. As with campaign costs, you need to be able to distinguish between normal daily fluctuations and trends either up or down.

Click-through Rate

Having charts of your costs and clicks is helpful, but it doesn't give you the whole picture. It's very easy to miss important changes in your campaign if you try to eyeball the charts against one another. For this reason, you should also track the average daily click-through rate. By knowing what is normal and what is not, you'll be able to see when something may be wrong with your campaign and dig deeper to find the cause.

Conversion Rate

The final key statistic to track on your campaign is average website conversion rate: the percentage of visitors to your site who buy from you. If you see great disparities between your sales and average conversion rate, that could indicate problems, especially if you see a spike in sales and a concurrent drop in average conversion rate.

Track Competitors Too

Beyond your own campaigns, tracking competitors' spend (and other data) can provide valuable insights. For instance, if a long-time competitor increases their bids, it's often a sign something is working. Check their landing pages for new products, feature improvements, or even new layouts and copy.

If a competitor's bids and/or budget drop, it's often a sign something isn't working. Aside from the strategic advantage this data gives you, it's also useful for benchmarking your own campaign spend and traffic against your competitors', which helps ensure you can at least achieve parity with your rivals.

Watches tell the time, all the time, helping you stay on track and make quick decisions at a glance. That’s why Android Wear supports always-on screens and always-on apps. You get the info you need as long as you need it, while saving on battery and avoiding arm twists just to wake your display.

Bring! Shopping List in normal and always-on modes.

Always-on fitnessGoing out for a run? Now, you can keep an eye on distance and pace just by glancing at your watch withEndomondo, MapMyRun, and Runtastic. If golf is more your game, Golfshot gives you accurate distances from tee to pin so you can always grab the right club from your bag.

And if you’re catching a flight, apps from American Airlines, Delta, and KLM show you flight status, gate, and seat info right on your wrist. Wearing your boarding pass keeps your phone in your bag and out of the airport lost and found.

With a wide range of Android Wear watches available in the Google Store, it’s easy to find a watch that matches your personal style. No matter which watch you choose, you’ll always be able to stay on track by keeping important info on your wrist.